Ruin

Amid the rioting in Jerolin, Maquin⁶ seizes his chance, dragging Fidele,⁷ the queen regent, into the forest. Hunted by Lykos's Vin Thalun, they survive on stolen food and Maquin⁶'s lethal skills. When a party of seven warriors corners them, Maquin⁶ kills them all, taking wounds that Fidele⁷ must staunch.

Their roles reverse: she who was helpless becomes his protector. They reach Ripa, only to find it besieged by Lykos. In a desperate dash to the gates, Maquin⁶ carves a crimson path through the enemy but collapses from a gut wound. Krelis's men drag him inside as Fidele⁷ screams his name.

Corban¹'s scouts report that Rhin's warband blocks the road south, and Calidus³'s Kadoshim are closing from the north. Rather than run, Corban¹ decides to fight. Brina and Ethlinn chant over the river, summoning a dense, rolling mist that swallows the Jehar and giants as they advance. When the fog lifts, the enemy stares into a wall of curved swords and war-hammers.

The clash is brief and brutal. Corban,¹ mounted on Shield with Storm¹⁴ beside him, hacks through the center. Within hours, three hundred of Rhin's soldiers lie dead. Corban¹ orders the survivors' sword hands broken rather than executed, then strips the field of supplies and presses south with renewed momentum.

Veradis¹¹ rides to meet Nathair⁴ near Uthandun, eager to celebrate the capture of the cauldron. Instead, he finds a haunted, distant king. In private, Nathair⁴ reveals that Calidus³ is Kadoshim and that his own oath now belongs to Asroth. He speaks of history as lies, of the victor's right to name good and evil.

Veradis¹¹ feels the ground dissolve beneath him. Every battle he fought, every friend he buried, was for a cause that never existed. He staggers away, numb and raging. Later, at the council of Mikil, he watches Nathair⁴ butcher old Belo without hesitation, and the last thread of loyalty snaps.

Tukul¹³'s mounted column crests the hill and sees Gramm's hold wreathed in flames, gates smashed by Jotun bears. With a battle cry, he leads a charge uphill into the enemy. He leaps from his saddle onto a bear, axes it in the skull, and with Coralen's aid kills its giant rider.

A second bear falls to his sword, but Ildaer's war-hammer catches him in the chest, hurling him against the feast-hall doors. Gar⁸ reaches his father as the light fades. They exchange a final gaze, and Tukul¹³ whispers his blessing before sliding into death. Gar⁸'s grief erupts into a killing frenzy, driving Ildaer and his bears back into the forest.

After sixteen days in the ancient tunnels, the warband emerges into the cavernous hall of Drassil, built around a tree trunk as wide as a fortress. The ten Jehar guardians who waited here for years kneel before Corban.¹ He walks to Skald's throne, where the first giant king's skeleton lies pinned by a sacred spear.

That night, Farrell and Dath present an arm-ring of dark iron and silver, forged for their leader. Meical² drives Corban¹'s sword into the stone floor and asks if he will bind himself to his people. Corban¹ swears the oath, his voice cracking, and the hall explodes with cheers. The lost refugees, slaves, and warriors have found a home.

Jael, having cut his way through Forn, appears before Drassil's walls and offers a champion's duel to spare bloodshed. Corban¹ accepts, facing Sumur, who is possessed by the demon Belial. The combat is savage and prolonged; Corban¹ is overmatched in strength and speed, his body accumulating wounds, but he refuses to break.

He blinds Sumur with a flick of dirt, then spins and severs the Kadoshim's head in a shower of black blood. As the cheers rise, Jael sends his mounted warriors to murder Corban.¹ Corban¹ sprints, leaps onto Shield's back mid-gallop, and the gates of Drassil burst open. The defenders, led by Balur and Gar,⁸ sweep the field. By dusk, over seven hundred of Jael's men have surrendered.

In the marshes, Camlin¹⁰ and Braith engage in a deadly game of traps and arrows. Braith captures Camlin,¹⁰ but the child Meg creates a distraction, and Camlin¹⁰ puts three arrows into his old chief's chest before hacking off his head. Simultaneously, Evnis¹²'s assault on Dun Crin collapses in flames.

After the battle, Evnis¹² meets Vonn among the reeds, pleading for his son to return. When Vonn refuses, Evnis¹² raises a knife, but an arrow, perhaps Camlin¹⁰ 's, punches through his heart. He dies in the mud, his schemes undone. Vonn stares down at his father's body, expression unreadable.

Summoned before Nathair⁴ at Brikan, Fidele⁷ endures her son⁴'s cold dismissal of her rape as grief-madness. When she can no longer stay silent, she rises and points at Calidus,³ calling him Kadoshim, a servant of Asroth. The chamber freezes. Nathair⁴ flinches, but Calidus³'s burned face betrays only contempt.

Nathair,⁴ after a visible internal struggle, orders his mother⁷ taken away, calling her words proof of her derangement. Veradis¹¹ watches, and the last tether of his loyalty to Nathair⁴ withers. Fidele⁷ is dragged out, but her accusation hangs in the air like a curse.

At the peace tent, Lykos whispers a taunt to Fidele,⁷ and Maquin⁶ explodes. In the chaos, Lamar is knocked onto Veradis¹¹'s drawn sword, dying in his son's arms. As grief swallows the tent, Ektor, the sickly scholar, reveals himself as Calidus³'s mole.

He stabs Alben, kills Peritus, and flees through the canvas. The survivors are thrown into cells. The rowan-meet, designed to prevent civil war, has instead shattered the rebellion, exposed a viper in the heart of Ripa, and left Veradis¹¹ clutching his father's corpse, his world in ruins.

In the grey Otherworld, Uthas kneels before Asroth's throne, surrounded by winged Kadoshim. The Demon-Lord regards him with casual menace. Uthas offers the last known locations of Nemain's necklace, buried in the catacombs of Dun Carreg, and the starstone cup, lost in the marshes near Dun Taras.

In return, he demands that when Asroth triumphs, the sundered giant clans will be reunified under his rule, with the great tree of Drassil as his seat. Asroth smiles and seals the pact with their mingled blood before dismissing him. Uthas wakes with a cold resolve, knowing his betrayal of his kin is now absolute.

In the vast silence of Drassil's hall, Meical² finds Corban¹ alone. His face is a map of agony. He confesses that there is no Bright Star, no divine prophecy. He wrote it himself, millennia ago, whispering the verses into the dreams of giants to set a trap for Asroth.

The prophecy was bait, designed to give the enemy a predictable path to follow. Every death, every sacrifice, was fuel for a strategy. Meical² weeps, saying he has come to love Corban¹ and cannot lie any longer. Corban¹ staggers, vomits, and then turns his back, walking into the tunnel with Storm,¹⁴ unable to look at the Ben-Elim.

Without warning, the southern trapdoor explodes upwards, and Nathair⁴'s colossal draig lunges into the great hall, black-scaled and screaming. Behind it pour hundreds of Kadoshim and Vin Thalun pirates, cutting down the unprepared defenders. Meical,² Gar,⁸ and Coralen form a desperate ring around the breach, their swords a whirlwind of death, but the enemy numbers are endless.

Calidus³ strides out, his charred face twisted in triumph. Then the eagle-guard of Tenebral march from the tunnel in their shield wall, an unstoppable block of iron and discipline that steadily pushes the ring apart. Balur One-Eye goes down, the starstone axe torn from his hands.

Dragged by three Kadoshim, Meical² is forced to his knees before Calidus.³ The high captain demands Corban¹'s location, but Meical² only laughs, calling him a force of nature. Calidus³'s lip curls. He orders Legion to take Meical²'s head. The black axe, reclaimed from Balur's corpse, swings down and severs the Ben-Elim²'s neck with a wet crack.

His white-winged spirit erupts from the body, filling the hall with a shriek of rage and grief before dissipating into the tormented air. Cywen,⁵ bound and helpless, screams. Calidus³ turns to her and smiles, promising that she will tell him where her brother¹ hides, one way or another.

Fleeing the ruin of Drassil, Corban¹ and Storm¹⁴ are run down by Ildaer and his bear-riders in the deep forest. Storm,¹⁴ already pierced by a spear, launches herself at a charging bear, tearing its throat even as a giant's hammer snaps her ribs. She collapses, and Corban,¹ his knee shattered, drags himself to her side.

He pulls the spear from her chest and presses his hands to the wound, but the blood won't stop. Storm¹⁴ lifts her head, licks his face, and lays her muzzle on his shoulder with a rattling sigh. Her final howl echoes through the trees as giants haul Corban¹ away. He hears the silence that follows.

After the failed assault on Dun Crin, Rafe sits alone by the marsh and pries open the locked box he dragged from a bog months ago. Inside is a heavy dark cup, veined with pale streaks and inscribed with giant runes. Curious, he pours wine into it and drinks. A flood of golden warmth surges through him, intensifying into ecstasy and then blinding agony.

Every fiber of his body convulses. He screams and collapses, the cup rolling from his numbing fingers into the grass. He does not know that he has just drunk from one of the Seven Treasures, the starstone cup, and that its power has left a mark deeper than any blade.